Canada's Political Party System

Question 1

How do party systems change?

Answer 1

1. They can change in electoral rules
2. They can change in underlying bases of party support
   Here, you need to understand the voter and how cleavage structures exist

Question 2

Why are political parties important?

Answer 2

They are key to democratic development. We should be concerned with the competitiveness of parties since the quality of a democracy is linked to the development of competitive party systems.

Question 3

Cleavage Structures

Answer 3

The underlying issues that structure the vote. Cleavages are fundamental differences in opinion, where you stand against others (ex. French vs. English, policy issues, class, etc.)

Question 4

How do parties emerge?

Answer 4

Voter’s choices leads to electoral rules leads to legislative seats which THEN lead to the parties that then sit in those legislative seats. When voters choose who they want to sit in those seats, we recognize people by their party. Political parties/candidates structures the votes (our votes are structured by them), and the way that legislative seats are organized are by parties.

Question 5

Median Voter

Answer 5

there are two alternatives (two candidates), on one dimension (one policy issue), with single-peaked voter preferences (voters vote for the candidate that is closest to them according to this issue = spatial theory of voting)
The prediction is that people tend to converge in their policy choices at the “moderate middle”
Since the middle is where the votes are, it predicts that parties will try to do the same (in order to be successful as a candidate/party, you have to be moderate)

Question 6

Spatial Theory of Voting

Answer 6

On whatever dimension the voters have to vote on (where these dimensions represents issues that voters care about), voters tends to vote for the candidate that is closest to them. Leads into the median voter theory.
Based on the spatial theory of voting, the best winning strategy is to converge to the median voter to maximize your changes of winning (as a candidate and party)—theoretically under an SMP system, the two parties will become more moderate in order to win

Question 7

Brokerage Parties

Answer 7

As tent/broker parties, they have to to try to capture pluralities in a diverse range of electoral districts, taking a stance on most issues (not being specialized). This happens with the two big parties (a duopoly with the Liberal and the [Progressive] Conservative Party).

Question 8

Electoral Pragmatism

Answer 8

Building the broadest possible support base, in order to win and follow votes. Are willing to change their programs over time to shape the government according to what is getting the most support.

Question 9

What are characteristics of the two dominant parties?

Answer 9

1. There is a duopoly
2. They utilize electoral pragmatism
3. They have an aversion to coalition politics in the House of Commons
4. It is leader dominated/fixated (meaning that it has been focusing more and more about the leader and less about the platform/who is in the party)
5. There is a parliamentary caucus (a parliamentary group that consists of members from different political parties with similar ideologies) that creates policy, and local riding associations have local autonomy

Question 10

What is the stability of the parties?

Answer 10

Liberals are typically dominant with the boom/bust conservatives. However, the largest parties Canada are some of the weakest in all democratic countries (“Canadian political parties are among the most organizationally weak and decentralized parties in an established democratic party system”)